In his opening speech at the first sitting of the 41^st National Assembly on July 14 2009, ultra-nationalist Ataka party leader Volen Siderov targeted outgoing Prime Minister Sergei Stanishev, who is also leader of the Bulgarian Socialist Party (BSP), and Stanishev's coalition partner Ahmed Dogan, leader of the Movement for Rights and Freedoms (MRF).

Referring to Stanishev's statement that he feared political repression now that his party was in opposition, Siderov said that it was Stanishev's Government that had used repression on pensioners and youngsters who had turned out to protest in the streets.

"You turned the police into a repressive machine against people who were expressing their discontent with your rule," Siderov said.

"You were the ones who conducted a policy of repression, using the support of the Turkish party, the MRF (which is supported mainly by Bulgarians of Turkish descent). This is a party which is direct descendant of a terrorist organisation which used to place bombs in the 1980s, and that promotes hatred," Siderov said.

He was referring to the times when the then-communist regime in Bulgaria had a policy of changing the names of Bulgarians of ethnic Turkish descent and who were Muslims, forcing them to take Christian names. This led to underground resistance and terrorist attacks on train stations, in which a number of people died.

According to Siderov, it was the MRF that promoted hatred through its statements and arrogant behaviour. He called on the Prosecutor-General's Office to investigate Dogan's words a few weeks ago that he was the instrument of power in Bulgaria who decided what money went where.

Siderov asked Parliament to set up an ad-hoc committee to investigate breaches of electoral rules at polling stations in neighbouring Turkey and in areas of Bulgaria populated by Muslim Bulgarians.

Siderov said that Ataka was ready to table four draft bills: condemning what Siderov termed the "genocide" suffered by the Bulgarian people during close to 500 years of Ottoman rule; asking Turkey to pay Bulgaria its debt owed to Bulgarian refugees who were forced to leave their land because of the Balkan Wars of the early 20th century; condemning the genocide suffered by Armenians under the Ottoman empire; and setting up an ad hoc committee on rules being broken during the elections.

Siderov said that Ataka would work for the abolition of the Turkish-language daily news bulletins on public broadcaster Bulgarian National Television.